1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a technical device and an associated remote control that can be attached to the technical device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Operating controls for technical devices are increasingly realized as remote controls. In the one hand, this provides the advantage that the operating controls or elements are not only directly operable while on the device itself, while on the other hand cables for signal lines can be eliminated by a radio frequency or other wireless remote control. This advantage in particular has an effect in very complex technical devices that comprise a plurality of operating elements (such as, for example, display devices or controls) and must correspondingly be cabled in an elaborate and complex manner.
However, a problem of remote controls is that their energy supply cannot ensue over the same wireless connections as the signal transmission. The wireless transmission of energy cannot be used practically over comparably large distances. It is therefore typical to provide remote controls with batteries in order to have an independent voltage supply available. In view of the environmental impact and practical handling of one-time use batteries, rechargeable batteries are frequently used.
Rechargeable batteries wear out at points in time that are not precisely foreseeable, and must therefore be regularly charged. For this reason, a suitable electrical connection to a voltage supply must be provided, whereas the batteries can for the most part still be used in the remote control. For example, the remote control can therefore be plugged into a charging station.
The plug-in location at the charging station allows no flexibility with regard to the place at which the remote control must be located for charging. Moreover, the plug-in space is frequently positioned such that the remote control cannot be reached, or can only be reached in some of the possible use situations. In entertainment electronics, for example, such a plug-in space is frequently on the electronic device itself. In technical devices, the plug-in space can, for example, be located in the region of a control console, and cannot be reached at other workstations that can be spread around the technical device. The same is true for laboratory-technical and medical-technical devices.